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Abstract

7. Project Summary/Abstract
Current seasonal Influenza vaccines are proving to be ineffective, especially in at risk
populations. For example, this year's inactivated flu vaccine had only a 9% efficacy rate
against H3N2 infections in the elderly and the current live-attenuated Influenza vaccine
(LAIV) is aged restricted for those above 49 years of age. Therefore there is glaring
unmet need - seasonal Influenza vaccines that are effective.
A translational, vaccine platform technology developed at Stony Brook University
entitled SAVE (Synthetic Attenuated Virus Engineering) has shown initial success in
yielding an anti-Influenza A vaccine in the laboratory strain A/Puerto Rico/8/34 that is
effective in animals at very low doses. This SHIFT award seeks to transform this
academic discovery into the beginnings of commercial product, by applying the SAVE
technology to seasonally relevant human strains and then compare efficacy against the
current LAIV. Demonstration of superiority will increase the commercial viability of the
technology as well as fulfill a current unmet medical need - flu vaccines that have high
efficacy in all populations. The drawbacks of current flu vaccines are two-fold- 1) both
the inactivated injectable vaccine or the current LAIV require a large quantity of viral
particles per dose >107, and 2) both have low efficacy in the aged population. The
SAVE technology could provide a solution to both of these limitations.
The SAVE platform relies on synthetic biology and the "re-designing" of a target virus's
entire genome to yield a vaccine strain. This customization process uses software-
based algorithms to 're-code'the genome of a target virus. Genomic 're-coding'results
in a virus that is antigenically identical (i.e. looks exactly like the wild-type, virulent
strain) but possesses a genome with hundreds of mutations rendering it attenuated in
the host. Since proteins of the SAVE-designed vaccine strain are one hundred
percent identical to the virulent strain, animals vaccinated with SAVE-designed
vaccines develop a robust and protective immune response. SAVE is a platform
technology that has had preliminary success constructing vaccine candidates for
multiple, unrelated target viruses including poliovirus and Influenza a virus (Science
2008, Nature Biotech 2010).
In Phase I of this proposal we will apply the SAVE technology to construct vaccine
candidates for seasonal influenza strains that are clinically relevant and subsequently
we will compare these strains to the current commercial live-attenuated influenza
vaccine to demonstrate commercial viability. In Phase II we will build upon our success
and test our SAVE-designed seasonal influenza vaccine candidates in a ferret model.